A Cemetery Stop on the way home from Tombstone
We left Tombstone early. Headed west toward Green Valley. The road stretched empty underneath a bright blue Arizona sky. From the south, I could see a storm approaching. Focused on the winding road, I spotted a small sign, ‘Fairbank Historic Townsite’.
I hit the brakes without thinking. Gravel crunched under the tires. I turned off the highway. Just a quick look, I told myself. It was never in the plans. But sometimes the best stops aren’t.
Once parked, we found ourselves in front of a number of fairly well preserved structures. The gypsum‑block schoolhouse, built in 1920, replaced a burned wooden predecessor. Restored and open as a museum and visitor center, it functions as the only building accessible inside. Inside the schoolhouse, to our surprise, was a man, ready to tell us all about his Ghost Town.
Other Structures
There’s a stable, garage, a home, Outhouses, and the Mercantile, once home to the post office, general store, saloon, jail, and restaurant. All of the buildings are in various stages of disrepair and locked up.
The path to the Cemetery
A half-mile walk climbs to the cemetery on a hill. The only footprints on the dusty trail were from horseshoes. Every few steps revealed tarantula holes and overly active ant hills with hundreds of frantic desert fire ants. The half mile felt much longer in the midday heat.
The Cemetery
A narrow trail leads out of town. It winds through mesquite and catclaw, slowly climbing a low hill. The path feels ancient, worn down by countless footsteps—settlers, miners, families in mourning.
At the top, the land flattens into a small clearing. This is the Fairbank Cemetery. There’s no formal gate, just scattered weathered posts and strands of rusted wire fencing that lean more than they stand.
Graves sit in uneven rows, sunken or heaped into low mounds. Many are marked only by rough wooden crosses, gray and splintered, some tilting at odd angles. A few have handmade stone markers, etched by hand, with names and dates nearly erased by wind and time. Others are just depressions in the earth, surrounded by scattered rocks—anonymous lives now swallowed by the desert.
A Look Back at Fairbank
Fairbank sprang up in the late 1880s, born of silver and the railroad. It sat right on the banks of the San Pedro River, a crucial stop on the line between Benson and the booming mines of Tombstone.
The town thrived as a shipping hub. Ore from Tombstone’s Grand Central and other mines was hauled here by wagon, loaded onto trains, and sent east for smelting. Supplies, mail, and fresh faces came back the other way.
Fairbank was never glamorous—it was dusty, practical, and tough. At its peak it had a hotel, saloons, a post office, general store, and even its own jail. It was also the site of attempted train robberies, card games gone bad, and the usual rough edges of frontier life.
As the silver mines played out and the river changed course, Fairbank faded. By the 1970s it was all but abandoned. Today it stands quietly along Highway 82, a ghost of the old West, preserved by the Bureau of Land Management so visitors like us can wander through time.
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